In the Belly Book

I was hoping this book of 50 poems, published in 2008, would still be relevant in our current political times of 2017. Unfortunately, only six of them seemed worth remembering. And I doubt I would have appreciated any of the other poems in 2008. The six noteworthy ones are timeless. The others, just not great poems in general.

I suspect the editors had a hard time finding really good political poems and this book is slim as it is. If they had edited out all the bad ones, it would have been a pamphlet.

The six poems I appreciated are: Tsunami Chant by Wang Ping, For Thom Gunn by Garrett Caples, September Song by Lucille Clifton, A Citizen by Don Bogen, This by Michael Palmer, and War of Wars by Wanda Coleman. If you can find these poems individually, you can save yourself the price of the book.